


The Difference a Minute Makes

by ashurbadaktu



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashurbadaktu/pseuds/ashurbadaktu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A shortfic that ran a little wild.  AU: Scott doesn't become a werewolf after he's bitten.  It's a little more complicated than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difference a Minute Makes

**Author's Note:**

> Very much unbetaed.

Scott died.

Well, not really. Actually, yes, really, but only for a minute. People should watch where they’re going if they’re going to drive through the preserve late at night…

It’s less of a big deal once he’s home, the bite wound on his flank oddly the most painful thing on him; the thing just won’t heal properly. His mother won’t let him do anything, Stiles keeps acting really guilty, like it’s all his fault, everything, up to and including WWII, and really, Scott just wants to know what exactly happened. To him, to the body, to the thing that bit him…

He knows about the driver of the car, because that’s whose insurance is covering his medical bills and his mother argues with him on the phone often enough; Scott has dubbed him The Douche with the Camaro and he’s reasonably certain Stiles could not hate a person he’s never met more if you paid him. The one thing the insurance doesn’t cover, though, is the frustration that he can’t try out for lacrosse this year even though he’d worked his ass off all last semester. He appreciates the time off school if only because then he doesn’t have to be reminded of the team he’s not on and the practices he doesn’t have to go to.

The dead body becomes much less of a mystery when he wakes up to see a rather beautiful woman floating beside his bed. He’s had dreams like this before, beautiful women in his room, on or around his bed… but the floating is definitely new. As is the fact that he can see through her if he looks hard enough. She notices him trying and rolls her eyes before asking for his name.

It is considerably less like his dreams when she tells him that she was murdered and that she needs his help to save a bunch of people from being murdered too.

Oh. And the Douche with the Camaro is her brother. FUN.

Apparently, this is what being dead for a minute does to you. It means that you can see dead people like that kid in the movie with Bruce Willis. It also means that you’ve got, like, a sixth sense about things, especially when it comes to helping wayward souls find their way to their Destination. 

…Stiles thinks this is all fascinating. And keeps asking what Laura looks like. He only huffs at Scott because he can only see Scott’s eyeroll.

Meeting her brother goes about as well as planned, partially because he’s still a Douche, Camaro or no, and partially because the second he gets to the house, Scott is pushing past him and running through the door, looking desperately for the way to the basement. The only thing that saves him from having his arm ripped off from what is apparently an angry werewolf is a childhood tidbit from Laura and something about a ring and Scott feels a little bit evil for saying it even if he hadn’t known it would hurt the guy so much. Then he’s heading downstairs and there are more spirits there than he’s ever seen in one place, some of them so LITTLE, and he Has To Do Something.

He’s wiped when he gets home. Ghost hands flutter through his hair, giving what little comfort they can but it’s her words that make him feel like it was all worth it, nearly falling through the stairs and all. 

He’s not sure if that’s a good thing.

Eventually, he’s well enough to go to school and it’s odd because the masses shuffling around in their classrooms don’t even feel half as alive as some of the people he’s been talking to here and there and around town. The point strikes home when he ends up being late to class because a girl who’d died in a homecoming accident 20 years ago needs someone to talk to and he couldn’t just leave her like that, now could he? The way home from school is Stiles telling him things about this medium and how ghosts are and poltergeists and had he ever heard of the Bell Witch and how she kicked Andrew Jackson’s ass and he eventually grumbles at his best friend to watch his language when he’s talking about dead people because she’s right there, okay?

Stiles sideeyes him. Maybe he has a point.

Things only really get difficult when it comes down to what to do about the killer. Derek is against killing his uncle, of course, as angry as he is about things. Scott isn’t sure how he feels about it and he knows he can’t really talk because he’s never had a member of his family killed before, let alone all of them. He wishes he was more eloquent, like Laura is, because even with him repeating what she’s saying, he can hear the difference. He’s not nearly as convincing, or maybe it’s just that he’s not a werewolf and he isn’t his sister and he’s angry it’s not. It’s hard to tell with Derek. He always kinda looks angry.

Scott has to escort another two people before Derek agrees with Laura and Scott feels the weight of those lives like anvils on either shoulder as he walks them towards a Path Beyond. They aren’t staring at him, blaming him; one thing he’s noticed is that the dead are generally pretty calm unless you set them off. Regardless, though, he feels it and he vows that they’ll be the last as they fade away into nothing even to his sight.

He’s wrong. But not that wrong. 

When the end of it all comes, when his hand slams palm first into the rough fur of mad, murderous Peter, he almost wishes he hadn’t done that. Oh, he doesn’t mind the giant wolf-beast falling over into the leaves, nor the blinking, startled spirit staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. It’s just that one, 

Killing someone is a pretty big deal, even if they probably should have been dead. And two,

He’s pretty sure he’s going to lose his friend. 

He looks around wildly, hoping, praying that she hasn’t already left, that she’s still there, and then there’s the smile he’d come to love and the ghostly fingers brushing the wild, slightly-sweaty hair out of his face. It takes less than a second and yet, it feels like forever before she yanks the much less frightening soul of Peter Hale and starts for the Path he’d found weeks ago behind the house, the one he’d led the rest of her family to.

Something in his face tells Derek, who grabs him harshly by the shoulder demanding to know if Laura is still there, if she had any parting words for him. That’s why he’s running around the house, he tells himself. That’s why he grabs her arm and holds her back for just a moment, their eyes meeting and Scott doesn’t know what to say but it’s necessary because God, he’s going to miss her and he’s not sure how he’s going to deal with that. Her answer, and some words for Derek, take less than a minute.

It’s only as he walks back around to the front of the burned out house and gets a crossbow almost literally up his nose that he realizes why she’d been smiling as she put her first foot on the Path.

…apparently, most of it was because she was trolling him, though everything he’d said had been so sweet, she hadn’t known he cared so much. He growls just a little when she pops up behind him saying so, but he figures that’s fair. Of course he’s happy Laura hasn’t moved on, but Why Did You Make Me Think You Were Going To? and Laura points out that he was the one who’d made all the assumptions (though she’d thought about going, to be fair). Ghost fingers on his shoulder make him feel better in spite of himself and they move on quickly to who this girl is, as well as the identity of the woman stalking around outside of the house.

Which explains why Laura isn’t going anywhere. Because despite everything they’d gone through over the last few weeks, this isn’t actually All About Laura. It’s about her family. And apparently, this ‘Kate Argent’ is the one who set the house ablaze so long ago. 

…Scott isn’t proud of himself that the first thing he thinks after hearing that is that it’s going to make asking out crossbow girl really awkward. Sometimes, he misses being normal.


End file.
